No Condemnation for Those in Christ Jesus

In one paragraph

The pastor opened with a story about a faulty temperature sensor on his car, then worked through the account of the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11, using the sensor illustration to frame how Christians can misread situations and react in ways that cause more harm than help. He closed by praying over a mass shooting that had happened the night before in Colorado Springs. The sermon...

Read together

1. Psalm 8:3-4 opened the service, asking who are we that God would love us
2. John 7:53-8:11 main text, the woman caught in adultery brought before Jesus
3. Leviticus 20:10 cited as the law commanding death for both the adulterer and adulteress
4. Deuteronomy 22:22 cited alongside Leviticus as commanding both parties to die
5. Exodus 31:18 the tablets written by the finger of God, connected to Jesus writing on the ground
6. Romans 8:1-4 no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit sets free

Talk about it

1. The pastor described the scribes and Pharisees as putting Jesus in a no-win situation, where any direct answer would damage his reputation one way or another. Have you ever faced a situation where doing the right thing felt like a trap? How did you handle it?
2. The older accusers left first, and the pastor suggested that age and accumulated regret may have made it harder for them to claim they were without sin. What does that observation stir up in you about self-awareness and judgment of others?
3. The pastor read through many Bible translations of Jesus telling the woman 'neither do I condemn you' and noted that judgmental people tend to skip straight to 'go and sin no more' without stopping at the forgiveness first. Why do you think that is, and what does it cost us when we do that?
4. The pastor used the story of his car's faulty temperature sensor as a picture of how our moral and spiritual instincts can give us a false reading and cause us to react in ways that do more harm than good. Can you think of a time when your own 'sensor' was off in how you read a person or a situation?
5. The pastor closed with Romans 8:1, 'there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,' and said that many of us wake up feeling condemned despite that promise. What makes it hard to actually live inside that verse day to day?